The Auditor-Controller's Office has initiated a strategy to promote awareness in the prevention and detection of fraud, waste, and abuse. As part of this strategy, we are working to ensure all County staff have access to information and tools to assist in the prevention of fraud, waste, and abuse.

The tools and information below will assist the County and our employees in the management of fraud, waste, and abuse.

Recent news reports confirm fraud can occur anywhere by anyone. This section contains articles on fraud that occured in other organizations.

An article in The Bellingham Herald reported Franklin County commissioners fired an official accused of embezzling over $1M. The paper wrote that Dennis M. Huston, a Public Works Accounting and Administrative Director, had been on unpaid administrative leave from his job since being arrested on suspicion of first-degree theft, money laundering, and cocaine possession. Huston was accused of creating a bank account for Critzer Equipment, a company that went out of business in 2001. Documents stated Huston told investigators he was using money from invoices for county payments to Critzer Equipment to buy narcotics. When he was arrested he had a blank check from the company. The current allegations are similar to a 1986 federal case in which Huston was accused of using his government employment to funnel taxpayer money to himself through a company that didn't exist.

In December 2011, the Association of Government Accountants (AGA) launched the release of AGA's state-of-the-art online resource designed to help officials at all levels of government to prevent, detect, and deter fraud called AGA's Online Government Fraud Prevention ToolKit.

AGA Executive Director, Relmond P. VanDaniker, CPA states, "By helping reduce fraud in government programs, more money can be made available for programs, services, and infrastructure."
View the ToolKit here: http://www2.agacgfm.org/tools/fraudprevention/